Sunnybrook Health Sciences acquires Oracle EHR

TORONTO – Sunnybrook Health Sciences made waves in the electronic health records sector a few months back with its choice of the Oracle Health system to update and upgrade its current solution. It seems that of late, many of Canada’s top academic hospitals have been opting for Epic, and that Sunnybrook was going against the grain.

But in a rigorous and objective review at the hospital, Oracle Health was the clear winner.

“It was the choice of our clinicians,” said VP and CIO Rob Lee. “In 2022, we issued an RFP that had over 7,000 clinical requirements. And it was all Sunnybrook specific.”

He noted the review at the hospital involved 768 clinicians and front-line staff. Decisively, their choice of EHR was Oracle Health.

Lee observed that the Oracle Health solution was particularly good at addressing the specific needs of Sunnybrook, which is a provincial and national leader in many areas of care delivery.

For example, it has the largest trauma centre in Canada, a major burn centre, and a leading cancer care facility – the Odette Cancer Care Centre. It’s also a top surgery provider, has some of the most advanced imaging equipment in the country, and is a major innovation creator, especially with its INOVAIT program for image guided surgery and the wide-ranging Sunnybrook Research Institute.

Locally, it tends to work closely with regional partners like North York General Hospital and Michael Garron Hospital, which also use the Oracle solution.

Of course, it collaborates with the downtown Toronto hospitals, like the University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospital.

But Lee stresses that with Sunnybrook’s advanced areas of healthcare delivery, patients are coming from afar, as well. “The whole province is our catchment area,” he observed.

Lee agreed that interoperability of patient records is increasingly important, as clinicians need to know the history of patients, especially their recent medical encounters, imaging histories and medication profiles to provide the best diagnoses and treatments – and the safest care.

He said, however, that interoperability of EHRs – in Ontario – has never been better, thanks to the Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) that make it possible to see data from other hospitals directly in the electronic chart, regardless of the vendor.

These repositories are even enabling the back-and-forth transmission of records with nursing homes, most of which use the PointClickCare system in Ontario.

The plan for Sunnybrook is to deploy the Oracle Health solution in 2027. It will be a “big-bang” implementation, with many areas going-live all at once.

Lee explained that most hospitals do it this way now, instead of using a gradual rollout. “If you don’t, and you drag it out, people tend to get fatigued,” by an overly long series of meetings and training sessions. Best to concentrate it all in a given period, he said, and to go live all at once.

A fascinating aspect of Sunnybrook’s Oracle Health deployment is that it will affect a wider range of clinicians than ever before.

In fact, previous iterations of EHRs at Sunnybrook were really physician-centric.

Now, nurses will have electronic solutions, including electronic notes and documentation. “Currently, our nurses are still primarily paper-based,” said Lee. “This will be a monumental step for us. We’re excited for all our health professions to be going on to one system.”

As well, clinicians and allied professionals throughout the enterprise will be part of the digital system. That includes pharmacists, lab and imaging professionals.

Lee noted that occupational therapists and physiotherapists, dieticians, speech language therapists, and others will be accessing and using the system, too.

“They won’t be chasing paper charts anymore, trying to find out who has the chart,” said Lee. “Everyone will be able view and edit the records.”

Just as it has become one of the top acute-care hospitals in Canada and worldwide, Sunnybrook aims to become a leading-edge site for the Oracle Health EHR system – a super-user, so to speak.

“We intend to become a Canadian reference model. We’re going to deploy Oracle’s ‘best build’ at Sunnybrook. And in turn, our goal is that Sunnybrook will contribute to the ongoing creation of Oracle’s new solutions,” said Lee.

“We’ll be involved in co-designing the system with Oracle, developing applications, but all balanced with patient safety. We never forget that we’re taking care of some of the sickest patients.”

Within those parameters, however, the hospital intends to become a powerhouse user and developer of the electronic health record. “Our ambition is to become a global reference site.”

These applications include artificial intelligence, which Lee agrees holds amazing potential for the future.

“We’re buying all of the AI tools, not just for doctors, but for nurses, too,” he said. Lee pointed out that Oracle has been investing in AI for nurses, something that’s sometimes overlooked in the AI excitement over the gains that have recently been made in ambient listening systems for doctors.

Lee said the hospital will certainly be investing in ambient listening systems and AI scribes for its physicians but wants to go beyond these systems with solutions for other clinicians, as well.

The plan is that AI will be deployed to solve many problems, and in doing so, to significantly improve patient care.

For example, one application can identify oncology patients who may qualify for clinical trials, and at the same time, can collate trials and match the patients with them.

Currently, this is often done manually; automating it and widening its scope with artificial intelligence could potentially save lives while helping to develop treatments.

Lee also sees great potential in AI for summarizing notes and giving clinicians a better picture of how the patient is progressing or declining.

In the end, Lee sees AI as a great enabling device. “Treatment isn’t driven by computers, but computers can effectively distill information and support our clinicians.”

“Oracle Health’s new AI-powered solution changes the EHR from an administrative burden into a clinical asset. It will enable Sunnybrook doctors to use voice commands to plan their day, gather relevant information about a patient’s prior history or medications, and even request summaries of recent research to inform care decisions,” said Erin O’Halloran, vice president and Canada market leader, Oracle Health.

“Equally important, it nearly eliminates menus and clicks, so doctors can spend less time looking at screens and more time focused on patients. We built this new EHR from the ground up to leverage the power of the latest advances in cloud and AI technology. It is a massive step forward for the industry, and it will keep Sunnybrook at the forefront of Canadian healthcare for years to come.”

She added, “Sunnybrook is consistently ranked among the world’s best hospitals and is a hub for groundbreaking medical research and treatment, and we look forward to supporting them in their vision to invent the future of healthcare.”